it downgrades itself for hewlett packard. is there hope for old school texts in this new tablet world? but first, let's get to our top story. really mixed signals on the economy today. senior economics reporter steve liesman joins us to break it all down. durable goods, orderer were awful, horrendous, jobless claims improved, though. >> you know, i have a theory, michelle. and i think these guys to my left and on the screen over there are waiting for more specific signals from me and the economic data before they figure out -- if you think about the five down days we've had, it's down like 1.9. it's essentially a sideways move. up 46, you said highs of the day. i don't think anybody here is jumping out of the chair. that's because the signals are really mixed. take a look at the data. the gdp with durable goods down 13%. don't get too excited about that.

a lot of that was aircraft orders. second quarter gdp down by 14%. midwest manufacturering, claims, though, went down 26,000 and the payroll revisions, that's through march of 2012. up by 386,000. so a little stronger employment in our rearview mirror and current. so the jobs are doing okay, i guess, is the best way to say. where gdp is weak -- >> hold on one second. can we bring up this interday chart? something has just happened. i don't know what it is, but we've had a very sharp move. we're going to try to figure out what it is in the meantime, but it's been fairly definitive here in the last few minutes. >> i want to add a tag on the end of that, which is not only what you're looking for in the signals, but what effect the fed action will have, trying to see that through housing, trying to see it through mortgages. it's too early to see that now. >> move, by the way, is probably because of spain. they're continuing the press

conference. >> i've been watching and listening, but knot nothing has impressed me so far. >> you're difficult to improve. >> if only you were taller, steve. >> i can wear heels. not those kind of heels. in any event, my question is -- tough crowd here. you said you were going to reach out to the -- and talked about the orders that we saw in the aircraft. was that military or -- >> it was a 40% decline in capital which is huge. we're still trying to figure out what happened. i don't know what the answer is, but that's something that may be lead to go sequestration, it could be from the draw down or just an anomaly when it comes to defining who put the orders in. >> so here is the question. even if that is the case, that spreads out broadly through the economy. so you can't just say, it's military, let's write it off, it's going to have major effects. were you surprised by the announcements that have come out by a lot of companies talking about the slowly environment, yet you see the housing numbers

pick up? >> i am. i think you guys would want to focus on that guidance coming from companies. just be always careful not to take too much of a single company. but when they start to guide down what the top line is going to look like, i think that's something you have to pay attention to. and it suggests -- i don't feel like we're slowing below 1%, but i think that 1.3% feels about right for where this economy is. >> steve, should we be excited at all about the core durable goods number? which is the cap ex. >> i want to be excited, but i would say don't be excited. and the reason is the index follows two declines, including one revised above 5% in july. and i think we have to make up that lost ground. i really want to see a sign of business confidence which by the way would match the consumer confidence we've seen. and then you could start to feel more -- about the economy. but once business starts to invest, i'm not going to be too excited about that. >> steve, thank you very much. let's go around the horn and trade the latest data. mr. najarian, what are you doing in line with what we saw this

morning? >> it wasn't just orders that they didn't book. it was orders that were canceled that caused the durables to fall off so much. just as steve said, is that the leading edge 06 sequestration? perhaps it is and i'm worried about that, very worried about that if, indeed, earnings are october 24th out of boeing, if they show up there, michelle, then i think you're really worried. but right now, i think this is just a blip. it's not necessarily a signal to get out or a signal that the fed is going to have to do even more right here. >> mcmurphy, how are you trading this? >> i'm kind of with john there, michelle. i was in the camp of hoping that bernanke didn't do qe3. so we got qe3, the market reacted positively initially to it and now you've had the sell-off recently. i think when you look at the data that came out this morning, the revision down to 1.3% on gdp growth, obviously, we needed this qe3. it was necessary. we need some more stimulus in the economy. and i think you have to look at

what the market is telling you. what's the s&p telling you? we've had a pullback for five or six days. very orderly pullback. we've held all our key support levels. i think right now the market is still in an uptrend and you don't fight that. you add on weakness here. >> i think you have to be selective where you add. i'm slightly positive, so i still think the market can move higher. however, i've been increasing my short positions going back for some short positions, but i've played for rallies, such as in the material stock. the numbers coming out of china, very weak. i don't expect any stimulus there until the new regime gets their putting. but they have a ten-year run, so they can take their time. so i'm more caution yurs in the market than i had been. while being positive. i'm short iron ore. i don't think you play those. i think you have to be more on the consumer stocks in the u.s. economy. >> stephanie. >> trade what we were talking about with steve. what do you think? >> well, i think there are pockets in the u.s., for sure, and you're looking at about 1.5%, 2% gdp growth modeling

along. there are strengths like housing, like consumer, like auto sales, like retail sales. we've talked about it. i think those are the names that you buy on pullbacks. i think that includes housing and banks and financials. i think you're going to see continued global easing around the world. there's all kinds of easing today that china is going to do something in front of their holiday. i don't know when it comes, but it's coming. i think that's why you want to be slowly picking at some of the industrials. you're at almost chalk certainings in that sector. you don't have to go full boar, but weakness. >> can a day go by when we don't talk about apple? >> no. it's at session highs right now. mike murphy, you bought this dip, right, about 9:30 this morning? >> mcc, yes. we did buy the am dip. my thinking here this morning was with our biggest concern with the portfolio, biggest concern is apple, then we're not going to have that many

concerns. the perceived slowdown and orders for the iphone 5, i think it's completely overblown with people looking for a negative there. so when you have apple trading down almost 6% in a couple of days trading, it created a great opportunity. we bought it and as luck would have it or fate would have it or we were just great on the call, it looks good right now. >> did anybody get in under $700 here? mr. najarian, you did? >> yep. and we said last week on the halftime report that you want to be short into monday and tuesday because that's when the rumors come out and all the rest. then you want to be long into the end of the week. why? you get the sales for iphone 5. you'll see how many upgrades there have been. there were 100 million upgrades to the ios just in the first 24 hours of it being out there and you're going to have all these fund managers. tell me, anybody raise your hand if you don't want it on your sheets at the end of the

quarter. everybody wants this one on their sheets at the end of the quarter. by the way, here is another data point. the size of trades as we got down to around 660 kept getting smaller and smaller until we just saw this wash of volume. so far today, it's traded 11.6 million shares. that's nearly full session volume. we're less than three hours into the trading day. that tells you that they've got the weak hands out and, unfortunately, i'm not denigrating retail folks, but a lot of retail got flushed. if you got flushed, it was because you didn't have put. you could have been in there and profiting from this move. 16-point turn around today. >> kudo toes doc because he called it perfectly last week, the action in the stock. and there's one quick thing i want to clear up. burgeoning issue, i talked about wearing heels, i talked about kissing bernanke and tim cook. don't draw any inference from that people, please, i'm a happily married man, still, to my wife. and we were talking about apple and new technology. last night on fast money,

investor dan nice talk about how pc companies are falling behind. >> you are seeing a transition again to another environment dominated by tablets and smartphones. and companies like dell and hp, don't they don't have good offerings in that area. to your point, pcs aren't going away, but its importance and its rate of growth is going to diminish in the future relative to smartphones as well as tablets. >> let's bring in peter. he downgraded hp to sell today and you already had like a middle performance. do you agree with that, dan niles? is that why you downgraded? >> it's a three-prong piece. we think the average age will be from around 3.5 now. you'll notice very little dinners going forward when you look at these browser

technologies and you'll use your tablet and smartphone to do most of your stuff. >> so really old pcs, 9 years old. >> we think they're going to re-enter the tablet market and we expect them to waste another $5 billion to $10 billion to re-enter that market. and their strategy will be to copy apple designs because that's worked for everyone else. and the last point is, the surfaces business and the printing business are two that are in difficulty. that is the one that they went to court with oracle on. and printing, frankly, anybody that gets tablets, printing going goes down anywhere near 25% to 75%. so it's a crazily bad number for anybody on that front, as well. >> your price target is only $14. it sounds like you would short this company. are you prohibited from recommending that or do you think it's -- >> we're not. we think it is a short. frankly, we think this price is

too high and we would want people to sell or short the stock here. >> peter, why do you think this company is not focusing more on software and services like ibm did many years ago and they've been very successful at it? why do you think they're going to know go after smartphones and tablets where they're going to be definitely a distant third or fourth or fifth, tenth higher or whatever it is? >> i think it's very difficult to do that and i think the management, the culture is on hardware as their last customer conference they had in june. they specifically said, we are a hardware company. and frankly, that's the problem. we're entering a software world where hardware is being commoditized and we don't think they're prepared. >> so do they need to change the board? they've changed management how many times here? >> yeah, i think there's a lot of things that need to be changed. anybody that was responsible for the palm, autonomy and all these acquisitions that have turned out to be disastrous, frankly, they probably need to look

elsewhere. it is a bad situation and meg inherited an awful mess. i'm afraid on october 3rd when they have their analyst day, we're going to hear some of the same and a reinvestment in mobile which we think will be a disaster. >> peter, it's good to have you on. >> my pleasure. what do you think? >> i think peter is pretty opaque. not at all. i think peter is dead on here. i think it's dead money, it's a value trap. if you have to be in here, you've got to be an aggressive writer of calls again this stock because i don't think it's going anywhere fast. >> anybody daring to dip their toe in this inspect. >> no, but you can't dip your toe in dell, either. if pc growth is dying, and it is, although i don't go to the seven to nine year life span, that's too aggressive, but why spend money on a pc when you can use a tablet or a laptop and be a lot cheaper? >> michelle, if i could just add

quickly, we had jim chenos on a couple of weeks ago from a conference and he brought hewlett packard out as a big short. at the time, it was trading about 20. i didn't love the call, but it looks like chanos was dead on this one. >> you'll love to hear that. thank you for bringing it up. ahead on this tape on the halftime report, what is helping the real estate market the most? one hint, it is not qe3. first, though, she delivered alpha for you. >> my starting premise is that this global deleveraging is we're only in the middle innings here. we're not anywhere near the end of it and it's going to continue to be led by europe. >> coming up next, kathleen kelleo, ceo of queen ann's gait co. this will reveal what she's investing in right now when we return.

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welcome back to the fast money halftime report. let's get a check on the markets right now. s&p and dow near the session highs. the s&p is higher by 11 points. we've had a sharp intra day move here, is 1,444. a gain of 0.5%. 13,476 on the s&p. and crude oil is higher by 2%, $1.73. $91.71 per barrel if you want november delivery of wti. is a commodity correction coming? at cnbc's alpha conference in july kathleen kelley of queen anne's gate made this prediction. >> i'm going to look at two ways to play a continued global deleveraging and continued european weakness but with extra fundamental reasons to be short these two things. one of them is the british pound and the other is platinum. and i think both of these over different time horizons probably

have the opportunity to move 20% to 30% lower from here. queen anne's gate is focusing on commodities. kathleen kelley is back with more on her commodity trades. you were going short the pound and short platinum. platinum is up 16%. are you still convince odd this trade? >> i think so. anybody nobody could foresee the problems we had in south africa. but once we've resolved production issues there, we think the market is still in surplus. even with this disruption right now, we're still in a small surplus. the problem is, that demand is very weak and demand is just not there. >> how about the move on the pound? >> on the pound, it hasn't -- we think that it's going to be real money driven when it rolls over. and if you look at the information we got this morning, it's setting up, i think, to be the case. so we've got fed gdp again this morning. that's the third quarter of negative gdp. we have a horrible current account number, the worst ever

on record. foreigners, the uk is indebted more and more to foreigners. and at some point, that foreign real money is going to leave that supposed safe haven of the uk. usually, you look at safe havens as current account surplus countries. most safe haven kubts are. but the uk has massive account current des sieve right now, high le leveraged to the financial sector. real money has parsed a large number of assets there. >> you're sticking by both of those. >> we are. but we have a longer term horizon on these. >> so where does that money go? there's the euro and there's the dollar. so which are you more positive on or less negative on? >> i think in the u.s., it was terrible, as well. and it called into play whether the business cycle is turning here given what happened in cap ex. but i think if we get through -- businesses are looking at the problems coming forward, the election and the fiscal cliff and thinking that they want to

put off those decisions, i think as we get through that, that the dollar becomes the better lay. >> the data today i would assume so plays into your idea that mocht commodities are going lower from here. so with a suggestion of lack of fundamental. >> the arguing sector has seen something, but even that is slowing as people make substitutions away from higher price commodities. >> you're not afraid of bernanke and draghi making you long? >> at the end of the day, we think it's demand that's going to make the difference. >> that's a big stake in the ground right now and it's been pretty contrarian. wouldn't you say? >> i think so. people are definitely increasing their betts on commodities. we started getting into short commodity positions this month and they haven't behaved the way you think they would given this open ended liquidity. >> and couldn't you say that the reason -- and i agree with you, i think that the economic realities over-shadow what

typically is a cheap currency drive in commodity prices. because couldn't you say that you've been able to satiate your appetite for commodities and now as the dollar has come down to where it is, which is at ridiculously low levels historically, and now it's about the economy with people not looking to deploy cheaper dollar commodity assets. is that fair? >> i think so. i mean, i had a friendlier view towards the u.s. economy before today's data. but it does make you worry some when you see those cap ex numbers, the shipments and the core capital goods orders and it is revisions to them. but i do think that that is more sentiment based and that as we come through this next couple of months, that you'll start to see a more -- people more apt to look at the dollar as the right place to be. >> mike murphy, go ahead. >> fundamentally, i'm agreeing with you on a lot of the points. but the old saying, don't fight the fed, you look at what's going on, there's talk that china is going to add additional

stimulus tonight. but looking at this trade, if stimulus keeps coming into the market, gold is up almost 1.5% today. across the board, commodities are up. isn't it hard to be on the other side of bernanke, the ecb and china all at once? >> we tend to look at commodities as being a supply demand play. and when we look at demand, supply is adequate in most of these commodities. when we look at demand coming mostly from china, in a lot of these sectors, it is not there. demand is holding up okay in china because of the power grid and the infrastructure spend.behalf paragraph it probably wsh as we change the leadership there, there will be more of a potential to use that. the link has been okay, but seasonally, usually falls off in the second half and anecdotally we hear it's falling off fairly dramatically. supply is at all-time highs as far as inventories go in the

zinc market right now and demand is not keeping up at all. so it's not really -- you know, we have to look at the balance within each individual market, but we see adequate supply in markets and declining demand. >> kathleen kelley says get short crude. if you had to pick one, where is the biggest play? >> i think crude still. crude is an input to other commodity markets, right? that's the economy that should have a direct relationship to other commodity markets. but crude supply, it's not a domestic supply issue. the saudi ves told us that they'll be there with extra supply. i think that this has been a liquidity play. the positioning in there is fairly long. so we expect crude to move further. >> do you have any hedges in place in case something explodes in the middle east or something happens with israel? i mean, the geopolitics, do you think about that at all? >> sure. we're playing it throughput spreads right now.

so -- but we have some long positions in the portfolio. there are -- you know, there are pockets of supply disruptions all the time where you can actually see that the surpluses are going to be smaller or, in fact, result in deficits. those are markets that we're looking for to identify. >> kathleen, thanks for coming on. >> thank you for having me. coming up, our top three trades of the day. find out which companies made the cup. plus, research in motion, dead or alive? we'll take the company's vital signs after this. shares tumbling 69% over the past year. and where citigroup's head of global real estate is seeing the most upside potential. we'll hear from tom. halftime report returns right after this. sometimes investing opportunities are hard to spot. you have to dig a little. fidelity's etf market tracker shows you the big picture on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector

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you can spend more time sharing your passions. wow. [ giggles ] [ male announcer ] with the people who matter most. i love you grandpa! i love you grandma! now you're a real fisherman. [ male announcer ] humana. welcome back to the halftime report. the definitive move higher we have seen in the markets since noon eastern time continues. the s&p at a new session time again higher by a full 1%. almost 14 points to 1447. stephanie, have you got any good conspiracy theories about why this is happening? >> this morning, there was all kinds of speculation ahead of

the chinese holiday next week that they're going to announce a stimulus program. i just don't think you're going to see a big, big program. but any news would be good news because, obviously, they've been somewhat behind the curve in terms of easing relative to other countries and other monetary policies. >> mr. najarian, any theories? >> i'm with stef. i think it's either that or something out of spain, michelle. there are all kinds of headlines about the economic minister of spain and so forth. whether or not that's the reason, certainly not why i would be buying here, but clearly, we did lift dramatically just as we were coming on to the air and i haven't seen a good headline to tie to it. so i think stef, stef, with the china and perhaps this out of spain would be my two first guesses. >> yeah. let's call ate buy program and call it a day. >> michelle? >> yeah, go ahead. >> one thing, you know the old saying -- and steve might be able to speak about this a little bit -- sell rashahama and

buy mam kippur. >> we're going to start with three trades. we're going to start with unusual activity in herbalife. >> i was talking to our herb greenberg about what i was seeing as far as unusual activity in the stock and options. people, the stock was up over a percent. they came in, bought a ton of upside calls. the stock moved up 3%. we know einhorn is going to speak in new york at that value investing conference. monday or tuesday next week. but obviously, back in man, he flagged herbal life. will there be any mention this time? not in my opinion with the stock down $20 from when you mentioned it back then, but maybe that's why people are speculating and buying these 52/50 calls. >> the brazilian miner vale.

>> i've been watching it a lot of days lately. after flipping and going long for a trade to the upside, i'm not short again. i don't think there's a chance in hell -- can i say that? >> yes, you can say it. >> that the chinese is going to come out with a stimulus plan now or anytime soon. the plan they announced yesterday was not a plan or last week or two weeks ago. it was a public announcement of what they announced months ago. bao steel in china shut down one of their mills, a 3 million ton mill in beijing. if the chinese are going to come out, you have to believe the larger steel company there in an extra pushed by the government wouldn't shut capacity if they're going to have major infrastructure. >> they're shutting capacity because they're not making money. and vale is the only one that is not making money. >> vale came in and said they expect $100 to $130 a ton. >> they're making money. >> they can make mope.

it's not a short. i'm not saying they're going to lose money. ieg saits saying it's overvalued. >> slim shady, nike is out with earnings after the bell. how are you trading it? >> we're out of this. the u.s. should be fine. the focus is going to be on china and on europe. but when you look at nike, they've beaten 17 sought of the last 19 quarters. i'm betting that they don't miss on back to back quarters. i think the numbers should be fine, but i don't know if fine is good enough with the rallies these stocks had. >> after rubber soles, you'll move on to technology after 7% decline in the last year, blackberrymaker research in motion has been left for dead, but the company did see a pop earlier this week. to break down the move and where the company may be heading, let's bring in john live in san jose. john. >> michelle, attempting though it may be to get excited about those rim subscriber numbers inching up from 78 to 80 million this week, it's nothing to get

excited about. here is why. rim is in the position lately where it's cutting prices on its phones and tablets just to keep being buying them. they can try to upgrade to blackberry ten when that arrives next year. if they don't discount, they're afraid their customers will run to android. rim doesn't have any new phones to speak of. right now, basically watching to see if rim's price cuts are working as a defensive measure. take a look at this, last quarter, the average selling price of a blackberry hardware was $212. that compares to $290 a year before and $299 a year before that. and you've got to consider the play book tablet to the extent it's selling at all is selling near 200 bucks. what is it going to take for rim to regain share? the blackberry rim has to be better. here is another issue few people are talking about these days. media tech. that's the chip company that nokia locked in on feature funs. after buying m-start earlier

this year, they said they're coming out with chip sets allowing chinese manufacturers to cheaply enter the market. if it works, that's going to give rim nightmares in the emerging markets where it's been able to hang on until now. >> wow. are you still negative on rim? >> i am. it's all about moving forward in technology and they haven't had a new product in almost a year. it will be until the beginning of next year they have a new products with markets going 50% to 5%, i think it's very, very difficult for a company to come back. >> dr. j. >> i agree. there's all the buzz about the gala x-3. there's no buzz at all about any rim product. there's not going to be. i would take any of these bounces and use it as an opportunity. >> stephanie, dead or alive for rim, what do you think? >> dead. definitely. >> mike murphy? >> i think you can take rim and hewlett packard and put them in the same camp as two companies killed by apple. >> double dip? double dead.

>> who is bringing real estate mojo to some of the same companies? we're talking global real estate right after this. bob... oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. [ male announcer ] fedex office. why they're always there to talk. i love you, james.

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welcome back. when is bad news good news? take a look at home builders. they're rallying today. even though they fell by 2.5% in july, the reason was there was a shortage of homes particularly on the low end. year over year, they were up more than 1057%. >> wow, all right. let's talk more about real estate at this point, bertha. foreign demand climbing for luxury u.s. properties, but that doesn't mean the overall real estate market is seeing much improvement. we are climbing the property ladder with tom flexnir. good to see you. >> good morning. >> give us your sense of real estate in the united states at this point. are we finally off the bottom? >> i think generally we're off the bottom. but it's a tale of many different cities. it depends on the type of real estate, it depends on the market, as you can imagine. the strongest parts of the united states tend to be the coastal cities where people want to live and work. and that is true for

residential, for office, commercial, and so forth. and perhaps the very strongest as you've pointed out just a second ago is the top bid for luxury residential and places like manhattan and miami. and it's a foreign driven bit. >> qe3. they're going to hoover up every mortgage known to man, supposedly. isn't that going to help? >> you know, i don't think that qe3 is going to do very much at all, other than keep interest rates low, which benefits all financial assets, right? but there's been no evidence that qe3 is actually going to make its way into the real economy and lift -- >> explain the disconnect, then, between low interest rates which historically led to more home buying and now it's not. why? >> two reasons. one, even though rates are low, credit card carriers for new mortgages is more difficult today than it used to be. so the normal person can't go

out and get a 70% or 80% loan the value of the mortgage. the second reason is historically interest rates have fallen when the fed and the government are trying to work there way out of a recession, out of a typical business cycle. this is much more of a long-term deleveraging debt cycle where the price of money is not really the arbiter of what happens long-term. and that is why i think we're finding that qe1, qe2, qe3, so much of that capital that they're spending is going back into the fed in the form of excess reserves. it's not getting lent because loan demand is not there. >> so if you're an individual investor, how do you play it? i own the mortgage rates, for example. are those something that i should continue to hold or should i be worried about the curve steepening? what would you suggest? individuals can't go out and really buy properties. >> right. >> for a lot of them. exactly. i mean, i think first of all,

you have to distinguish between the equity rooeits and the mortgage reits. >> and distinguish. >> absolutely. there's a clear hierarchy of balance sheets and business model that, you know, if you do your homework, you can probably find the right tradeoff between risk tolerance and yield. right now, the public reits are -- they have the floor because they have a dividend yield that's in the mid 3s, it's 200 basis points through treasuries. they're viewed in a hard asset. they could inform in a deflationary or inflationary environment. the mortgage reits, you know, i happen to like the number of them, which was -- well, i can't talk about the specific names. i'll definitely tell you off of air. but you want a mortgage reit that has match funded itself as best as possible is not reaching

on the credit or risk curve to create spread, but is getting it because it has a cost of capital advantage because of balance sheets. >> you spoke about this generally, but let's scroll down just a little bit more. we spoke about residential commercial real estate valuations. are we off the bottom there? >> i think we're off the bottom but, you know, it so much is going to be a function of what happens to employment growth and gdp growth in this country. you can't separate the values from the fundamentals long-term. and so that is the big unknown. and the other big unknown is that over the next four or five years, there's roughly 400 plus or minus billion dollars of mortgages in commercial worlds maturing each year. a significant portion of which are under water or overleveraged, meaning they can't be refinanced in a normal way. >> somebody is going to write those down. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> hopefully it's not your bank. >> knock on wood.

>> see you later. all right. don't move. on the way, a pick up in credit card spending helps discover financial beat the street. a look at whether you should buy shares on that news. we'll be right back. more than , ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪ wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. [ yawning sound ]

good afternoon, everybody. the referee is back on the floor here. coming up at the top of the hour on power lunch, radical new changes you as employers offer

health care benefits. it may have major ramifications and could lead to higher taxes for you down the road. happy 14th birthday to google. the web giant's global entrepreneurship head is going to tell us about the hot new start-up the company is investing in now. and nike and research in motion gearing up to report earnings after the bell. we will get you the head of the bell curve. now back to michelle and the halftime money report. >> 14 years. unbelievable. we're waiting for a press conference from roger goodell of the nfl to talk about the fact that they timely got some resolution to what has been this interesting strike, to say the least, dr. j. it's made for a lot of interesting conversations about some very bad calls. >> and it was a very bad call until they settled it. this was a $10 billion business folks that we were rounding about $3 million.

rounding error $100,000 per team per year to have a horrible result with all of these games. nine different dogs won this weekend, by the way, only the second time i believe in the last 30 years that's that's happened and it was because of baud calls in many cases. >> that would be a reference to teams that weren't expected to win. >> the underdog, yes. and obviously the big one that turned the whole thing around was the seattle/green bay game monday night. i think goodell and the nfl are doing the right thing now, thank god, because this is my game. this is what i think we all love to watch on sunday and monday and thursday night. >> brian shactman is our sports business reporter standing by. he's going to cover this for us. what do you think we're going to hear from him? >> i think you'll see them equivocate about what they did, obviously accept some responsibility and move on. i think the only thing that's a trouble spot here outside of the possible $1 billion that switched hands in vegas is what if the green bay packers don't

make tight is the playoffs by a game? this had to do about pensions, about job security, not too dissimilar to the teacher debate that was in chicago. >> i was going to say, when dr. j says this was the disaster surrounding it, but what about the principle of it? >> it's a couple million a year, michelle. and it's a $10 billion a year business. it's pennies for these guys. they're competitive. they don't like to lose. pensions are a thing of the past in this country for the most part. everyone has a 401(k). not everyone has a pension. they made a compromise and to be honest with you, the play on monday night was a disaster for the nfl. the deal they got with the refs was fine. they get out of the pension business in a few years and they move on. >> stand by because we're going to wait to lisp to roger goodell directly. >> one thing is, when do you remember the nightly news brian

williams and everybody else leading with an nfl story? i think it's helped viewership and i don't agree that -- and i agree that it's hurt the integrity of the game. it's been a lot more fun talking about it, though. >> that's one way to look at it. discover financials spiking today after spiking quarterly earnings. net income results 3%. stephanie, you're looking to get into this name, right? >> well, it's had a nice run. it's up 61% year-to-date. it trades at a significant discount to its peers. if you look through the details of the quarter, it was actually very good. you had a very good credit. you had very good growth in terms of spending volume is up 9%. income up 11%. most importantly to me, though, was net income margins. they expanded 14 dips. that's very hard to do in this flat yield environment. capital ratios at absolute industry highs. so this is one i would love to buy. if you see uplift, mid 30s or

below. >> so you're a little in front of the moves so far. >> yeah. and you may see a little bit of a pullback. and if it's in the macro/grand scheme of things, i think that's when you want to look. >> anybody else find this or are curious about it? >> stephanie, i stephanie, why has it essentially been the stepchild of credit card companies? >> that's why it always trades at a discount to the group. i think it's a fairly new company being spun out, and it has -- obviously has to prove itself, but you've seen several quarters now in a row of better trends in terms of credit quality and spending growth. so i still like it. >> all righty. coming up, they may be fast, but they're not always right. one of our traders learned from a recent trade gone wrong. and waiting on roger goodell. we expect him to host a news conference any moment now. we'll dip in and listen. [ male announcer ] the 2013 smart comes with 8 airbags, a crash management system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety.

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not so fast, eminem. our traders are quick but sometimes they get burned. take a listen to mike murphy's call on titan international last month. >> murphy actually likes titan. and i'm long titan. this stock has pulled back since they announced their quarter but looking at the setup it was up at $30 a share and it's very interesting. they're growing per acquisition and based on 2013 it's trading at seven times earnings so i think it goes higher. >> yeah. so titan is down about 22% since that call. mike, what do you say? >> it's a name that has -- a cheap name that has just gotten a lot cheaper. we're still long the name,

michelle. and really, nothing has changed. you look at the fundamentals on this company, it's in a sector that's been out of favor, but by far hands down titan is cheaper than any other machinery name out there. so we look at this name. they're growing through acquisition. they have a lot of exposure that they're going to be getting to mining business. now, ge made an announcement earlier this week that they were looking to expand into the mining sector. also, a company like titan that puts the tires on large tractors that are made by a deere or an agco sets up as a great acquisition as it comes down. so i don't think it gets much cheaper. right now it's a bad trade, but we're sticking with it and i think it gets to the mid 20s st still. >> simma mody joins us with your tweets. >> here are some of the big questions on tweeter today. the real shen tweeting he's seeing a lot of recent upside call volume in fusion i.o. writing that even doug kass is on the long side, but what's the "fast money" take? dr. j as you know fusion io most

popular for its enterprise flash drive stock up 45% in the last few months. what's your stake? >> i still like it. hats off to dougie. in was a great call by him two days ago and the stock has moved up very strong. it gave it all back yesterday, though, simma. if it holds on to it today i'm more bullish on it, north of 31, than i was even yesterday. >> bullish on fusion-io. let's get to the next one. calvin tweeting i bought netflix at 114 bucks in march. it's down 50% ever since. not sure if he should add more to his position or cut the loss. the online streaming space continues to heat one amazon prime, hulu, hbo go. can netflix prevail? >> i don't think they can. i'm not saying they're going out of business. but the stock is going lower. and that's the big lesson there. just because a stock is lower priced in their shares doesn't mean that it's gotten cheaper. i could actually tell you that netflix is more expensive in the 50s than it was at 104. so i would sell the rest of it,

move on, take your loss, and just get out. >> take your losses. got it. and now let's get to the next tweet. talking chips for a second. steve tweeting, "i got killed in cirrus last week. are any of the chap makers worth it?" >> broadcom, cirrus launch, logic, around the apple launch like we usually do. what gives? >> it was a concern over the units. i still think it's a supply issue not a demand issue. the thing with cirrus is it's about 60% exposure to apple growing to 80% over time. this is your apple derivative. if you believe apple continues to go higher this is the one you buy. >> i'ma, thank you for bringing us those tweets. today on "power lunch" the big change in health insurance. more companies may be about to say you deal with it on your own. that's coming up. first, though, final trades. and then we're still watching for roger goodell. talking about the end of the strike or the walkout -- or lockout, excuse me, she tried to

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final trades. mike murphy. >> twi. titan international. >> stephanie. >> dollar general. buying it. >> jon. >> wmb. buying it. >> steven weiss. >> short r.i.o. >> don't move because we are waiting for roger goodell of the nfl. "power lunch" is up next. don't forget "fast money" at 5:00 p.m. eastern. halftime's over. the second half of your trading day begins now. >> we're going to go to roger goodell right now. you heard the whistle. and there is the commissioner of the national football league. >> very positive i think for the game and obviously our fans. so happy to take your questions. >> commissioner, there was a lot of talk about sunday night -- monday night, about how much that influenced the negotiations moving forward. can you talk about that? >> you know, we were in intensive negotiations for the last ten days.